The present invention relates generally to computer decision-making systems, and in particular to the use of computer networks to gather information relevant to insurance-related decisions.
Insurance companies issue policies to insure against different types of risk. The amount they charge for such policies should accurately reflect the risk insured against so the companies can offer profitable, but competitively priced, policies. Thus, accurate risk evaluation is essential for such companies to make rational business decisions.
Historically, risk evaluation was performed by underwriters who are individuals with expertise in assessing risk based on many factors. These underwriters, or xe2x80x9crisk evaluators,xe2x80x9d work in conjunction with insurance agents to collect and analyze data representing factors affecting the risk associated with a particular customer.
Of course, the accuracy of the risk evaluation depends upon the accuracy of the data forming the basis for the evaluation. Traditionally, this data, such as driving records, credit records, and name and address records, was acquired from independent sources with their own formats and request requirements. The collection of this data and the necessary conversions between incompatible formats has proven expensive and burdensome. With the automation of risk evaluative decision-making, this expense and burden has only increased.
At the same time, customers are increasingly seeking agents able to handle all transactions knowledgeably and efficiently, anticipating future needs, and delivering core benefits expeditiously. Current systems, however, hamper efforts to achieve these goals. Agents are given limited access to information, and an unnecessarily large number of transactions are referred to the underwriting environment. As a result, risk evaluators often spend an excessive amount of time on individual risk selection, rather than on assisting agents in broader market management activities.
To reduce overhead, insurance companies now use computer systems to help risk evaluators perform their assessment. These systems facilitate communication between risk evaluators and agents, improve the speed and accuracy with which insurance policies are processed, and increase the overall quality of the insurance product purchased by consumers.
In spite of the increasing use of computers, insurance companies"" efficiency is still limited. Prior agent computer systems requested information from external systems about a potential insurer using a batch processing network, such as an overnight batch exchange. Prior insurance data gathering systems did not allow for real-time or near real time gathering of data for faster insurance evaluation.
The present invention facilities risk evaluation using information sources that gather and return data on insurers in real time or near real time to risk evaluators or to automated risk evaluation processes.
Systems and methods consistent with the present invention control a computer network to assemble data for rendering decisions based on the data, the network including a data manager having a memory, and a data gathering system coupled to vendors of data. The data manager processes requests for data by invoking real time information interface processes to retrieve the needed additional data through the data gathering system. The data gathering system formats the request using templates based on the data vendor to be accessed. The data vendor is sent the formatted request and returns the requested data in real time. The data gathering system matches received response data with the request and delivers the data to the data manager for further processing.
In one embodiment, the data manager automatically processes applications and generates requests for data when needed to perform automatic risk evaluation.
Both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory. They provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.